India’s Arvind Lifestyle Brands Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Arvind Fashions Ltd. (AFL), has seen brands return to pre-pandemic levels. Indian denim manufacturer and management company for fashion brands has just raised 59 millions dollars from existing investors.
The Asian fashion group announced Monday it has raised 439 crore rupees (a little over 59 million dollars) from existing investors. AFL stated in a statement that the new funding will “significantly enhance” the balance sheet, allow the business pursue its growth strategy, and protect it from any near-term pandemic-related uncertainties.
It’s worth recalling that earlier this summer, the Indian retailer signed a definitive agreement to sell its value-fashion retail chain Unlimited to retailer V-Mart Retail Ltd, for about 20.2 million euro in an all-cash transaction. Shailesh Chaturvedi (CEO of Arvind Fashions) commented on the deal. He said that Unlimited was a fair deal and they plan to concentrate on building “high conviction brands”, such as the US Polo Assn. and Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein and Arrow, Flying Machine, and Sephora.
Arvind Fashions to focus on the six brands that have already recovered from pandemic’s impact Other things are less important in this context.
“Indeed, these brands would have recovered sales levels not seen since the pandemic started”, according to Chaturvedi. “We thought very hard and came up with six brands as our core competency. Our brands are casual and relaxed so they can be worn post-covid.” He said that brands have been recovering strongly in July and August because the portfolio is perfect for work from home.
In a recent interview, the company’s CEO acknowledged that “Covid wave two was very strong and very bad” and that the lockdowns and store closures impacted the business negatively. “We had a plan. Because we had already done some things last year, we had some muscle memory about how to manage cash flows and costs.” Chaturvedi said that we also had the benefit of a Rights Issue money in May.
The company delivered 50 percent net sales value in the first quarter of this year, compared to the same period a year and two years ago. Our business grew four-fold in the first quarter compared to last. The company’s executive stated that a large part of this growth was due to our power brands and digital.
